Had the day off work today, so I spent it all with JoDee. (Can't think
of a better way to spend a day off. :) ) We went out to Belleville to
see Ruth. Had a lot of fun out there (JoDee and Ruth got some chocolate,
so they were hyper as hell).

After we got home from Ruth's, we watched the bastardization that was
Iron Chef USA. To put it bluntly, it sucked. It felt like they took the
worst parts of the Iron Chef battles with Bobby Flay and Masaharu
Morimoto and distorted it in much the same way that professional
wrestling has changed Grecko-Roman wrestling. Basically the premise of
the show was the same, but it felt, well, stupid to watch. The elements
were all there, but they were Americanized in ways that detracted from
the pagentry and nobility of the Japanese version. And William Shatner
definitely needs to get the boot. JoDee and I wondered how Patrick
Stewart, or Avery Brooks would have handled the role. I think Lawrence
Fishburn, Matt Frewer, or even Ted McGinley would have been a major
improvement. After the "Secret Ingredient" was revealed, we turned it
off. As a fan of the original series, the American image of what made
the show so great just seems shallow and insincere. Perhaps the original
show looked the same to the Japanese when it initially aired, but seeing
as it has a following, and ran for 8 years over there, I doubt it wasn't
at least taken semi-seriously. I doubt this show gets more than three
episodes made. And where in the hell did they get the audience from with
the signs and stuff? And the idea that William Shatner has travelled the
globe to find his "Iron Chefs" is laughable at best. At least if they
had Ted McGinley host it, they could jump the
shark from the start.